


The Lady Speaks

by booktick



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Gen, Graphic Description of Corpses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-15
Updated: 2014-06-15
Packaged: 2018-02-04 18:04:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1788148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/booktick/pseuds/booktick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lady Stoneheart was not a kind woman.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Lady Speaks

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ohmytheon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmytheon/gifts), [bela013](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bela013/gifts).



> A/N: This had a bit of violent imagery through out it, some graphic stuff, just a heads up. This is for friends and a prompt. The prompt is: Write for at least 1000 words about an act of cruelty, a song, and a theater.

Time was stuck in a cycle in Westeros.  The same cycle kept turning and people kept their swords swung and others were burned. It was the same cycle from Aegon I to the Mad King to the Red Melisandre. It was not a cycle forgotten. Freys and Lannisters kept falling in piles, one upon the other.

It was to be expected when people started to feel the cold that whipped around and around, choking those who passed through it. Stoneheart would choke the life from each whether it was with rope or the purplish hands that covered her own throat when speaking.

Lady Stoneheart was not a kind woman. She was not a reasonable woman. And she would not be forgotten as Catelyn Stark’s body was.

Frey was a name that was cursed. Walder Frey was lucky, the luckier of cowards, and sleep took him before the cold did the others. People still crowded around, tried to stay warm and safe in their little world.

But their little world was getting smaller and fuller. Men did not know what to do, though loyal to the South did not feel loyal to the South and those in the North were suspicious of the howls that had once brought them comfort.

“Stoneheart. She got a few up further from here, right?” There were a few of these loyal, suspicious men, gathered around a fire. They had tried to stay warm too like the world they lived in had.

“She saved that giant one, with the blond hair.”

“Brienne of Tarth.” One man said the name bitterly.  
“Are you sure you don’t mean Jaime Lannister?”

“No! She hates the Kingslayer.” The storyteller had started this discussion and it was getting away from him.

“Ain’t much of a Kingslayer no more, is he? In need of a helpin’ hand last I heard.” Another laughed at his joke.

“I only meant Stoneheart. She’s picked favorites, those who slaughtered at the wedding from those who were loyal to the Starks.” The storyteller nodded his head, hands wringed together.

Lady Stoneheart did not pick favorites.

"You think she existed?" The man who laughed asked, no longer laughing.

"Don’t you go tellin’ tales again. You’re gonna scare the lad." Grown men gathered around fires. It was not always fires—there had been taverns…and caves…

"It isn’t a tale. It’s true. Stoneheart lives. She kills any with the blood of Frey. Aided them. Don’t matter to ‘er. Slick.” He dragged his thumb across his throat “Slit her neck, across—ear to earr.”

“Shut it.” The bitter man from before sneered.

“They say she floated three days, aye.” The storyteller put his arms out, mimicked such an action.

 “And old couple of men, came up across the river. They pulled her out. One begged to bring her back but it was too late.” Storyteller nodded his head and wiped his nose, sweat had glistened on it from the flames’ heat.

“People can’t be brought back. Once you’re dead. Ya dead.” The bitter man spat.

“Nah. Catelyn Stark was brought back. And she’s pissed. She won’t stop until the whole ground is thick with blood. I tell you that.” The storyteller nodded, even a bit of a smirk was on his lips.

The other man shook his head and glared, no doubt rattled by the words though pushed through to keep up his ignorant appearance.

The fire dimmed. The fires always dim.

"And I said shut it. It’s just a stupid story. Stoneheart ain’t real. It’s just people tryin’ to get a rise-“

The first slick noise took the head of the foolish followers around the fire.

_Sliiiickt. Thompthomp._ Off their heads went.

After their heads rolled to the feet of the one who denied Stoneheart, she looked at the Bitter Man who had told lies and spat his fear around.

"Take the false tongue of those who lie." The words made it sound as if Lady Stoneheart was smothered during it. Her voice rattled as well as thick—hard to truly hear nevertheless he heard.

“Yes, M’lady.” One of the figures he could not see spoke behind him.

The blood splattered on them too when their tongue was cut out by the seam. The being that stood over, it was towering as well as it was cloaked, an unkind, ashen figure. The man that had sneered and been bitter, he slapped his hands over his bleeding mouth. He was on his knees much as if knelt before a Queen of Grit.

And he would have run if he thought it’d help.

His scream was wounded. As if he were being strangled…mutilated once again.

Some had tried to make it. They ran out into the world with swords and in groups. If they could not fight with swords they fight with numbers, the masses could gather up—take down a creature that named itself of stone.

She slowly brought her ruined dress to the side, to not trip over it as she crouched and stared with those icy eyes at the bleeding man. The Bitter Man kept choking on his blood and stared up at her with wide, fearful eyes.

He believed now, did he not?

He believed in all the stories.

And he would know who had done this to him. He would know.

The grittiness of her broken nails dragged along the choking man for a moment before she stood up again and stepped over her game. Stoneheart pressed her hand to her throat and pressed against it once more.

“I want them all.”  
“M’lady?” Someone, a loyal one of hers, spoke. They were all actors, it was theater—it was not poetry.

She did not turn to look who it was. She did not need to look. It did not matter. They were loyal or they were bleeding like The Bitter Man who now lay still behind her in the blood crusted leaves.

“I want them all. _I want them. **I want them**_.” She sneered in rage. Stoneheart let go of her throat and opened her palm.

She had kept it shut while her other hand had touched before. The song was loud inside her head, like a drum.

_Boom, boom, BOOM._

_A cat of a different coat…_

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own none of this franchise.


End file.
